


He Was the First

by HomuraBakura



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 00:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4939873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For GoddessofAnubis</p>
<p>Yu-Gi-Oh Fic Exchange 2015</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Was the First

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoddessofAnubis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofAnubis/gifts).



He was the first, every single time.

He was the first to challenge Judai. Really, really challenge him. He still remembered the way that blue-cut figure stood across the arena from him with that smug smile and the harsh presence of his cards and his skill. Judai always likes to think that he would have won, knowing what card he had drawn, but who knows what he had had up his sleeve? The not knowing had been intoxicating. He was the first one to give him a challenge, to really make him work for a win.

He was the first one to push him. To make him feel like he had something to stretch towards and something to fight against. He could still remember the heat and the friction of his Armed Dragon on the other side of the field, the way that it cut through the air with every motion and the harsh, powerful way it sliced through his monsters. He had almost lost that time, and he wasn't sure he would have been disappointed if he had.

He was the first one to resist him. To growl and snap at him like an angry pedigree dog that didn't want the mutt anywhere near him. The others, they were won over pretty easily with smiles and wins and jokes. But he, he didn't. He resisted becoming friends. He would sit in his corner with his arms folded and his dark eyes scowling from under heavy bangs, with snaps and retorts and insistence that Judai get the hell out of his room. Was that why Judai just became so much more present whenever he was in the room? Was he really so petty that he found himself drawn by the only person that wanted nothing to do with him?

Or was it that...was it that he had known the truth? That Manjoume Jun was the first to reject him, but also the first to call him rival. And rival became their word for “friend.”

He was the first person that Judai found himself wanting to be near, instead of it being a chore, or something to remember, a check list of people that he had to remember to greet and ask after. He was the first person that Judai wanted to check in with every single day without having to have something remind him, something to pull him out of his own internal monologue.

He was the first person that Judai wanted to duel again. And again. Manjoume got so tired of it, of losing, and starting refusing him. He was the first person at school to just...refuse to duel Judai. So Judai just wanted to duel him more. He wanted to be standing across that field from him again and feel that pressure and see that smirk that he only got when he thought he was winning, thought that everything was in the bag and he was going to best him this time.

He was the first person to die.

Judai—no, Haou—remembered it too well, too clearly, too strongly. His rage. The way he spit with anger. “How could you do this to us? How could you just forget about us and go forward?”

“This is your fault.”

He was the first person to shout at Judai. Really shout at him. The first person to throw insults and hate and anger at him. Everyone else...they had tried to speak softly. Or not spoken at all. They had just drawn back, tried to put distance, rather than grow angry and upset. Was that why Judai had thought then that he didn't need to care so much? No one was upset with him, so it was okay.

It was all okay until Manjoume hated him.

He sat on his dark throne and stared at nothing. The room was so cold, and dark, and his armor was heavy and chafing and he wished he could take it off but he couldn't. He had to keep fighting. There was nothing else except to fight. He lost everything else.

He was the first thing Haou lost.

Sometimes he thought he could hear him standing behind him. Grumbling at him as usual.

_“You're a dumbass, you know.”_

He swallowed.

“I know.”

_“You could just stop, you know. Stop being a dumbass.”_

Haou laughed softly.

“If only it was that easy.”

_“It could be if you weren't such a fricking dumbass.”_

“You're the only one that's ever called me a dumbass,” he said. “The first person to do that.”

_“Someone needs to take you down a peg or two once in a while.”_

“Maybe....maybe they do.”

Maybe he wouldn't have turned out like this if everyone had been more like Manjoume. More able to call him out. To shout and rage at him when he was wrong and wasn't listening.

Maybe things would have been okay.

He was the first one, always. The first one at the beginning, and the first one at the end. The first one to appear in his hallucinations of those he lost, and the first one to stay beyond the hallucination. Just standing there, behind the throne in the shadows, so that if Haou turned around maybe he would see him—but he never looked, because he was too afraid of not seeing him. He made do with the grumbling.

_“Dumbass. Just stop this. You're hurting yourself with this, you know.”_

“I know,” was all he could whisper then. “I know.”

He was the first one. First to challenge, first to push, first to resist, first to die.

First to stand up from the table when he finally walked through the door, tired and broken after fusing Yubel to his soul, with everyone all just sitting there and staring as though they couldn't believe their eyes.

First to meet his gaze head on with a fire in them, no hesitance, no fear despite what he had done to him. To all of them. First to smirk and raise an eyebrow at him. First to walk towards him and hug him briefly, before drawing back and punching him—hard—in the shoulder.

“Welcome back, dumbass,” he said.

He was the first.

Always.


End file.
